


Forget About the Sunshine When It's Gone

by bloodofpyke



Category: One Direction (Band)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-09
Updated: 2012-11-09
Packaged: 2017-11-18 07:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/558418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodofpyke/pseuds/bloodofpyke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They can still feel him a bit, like he's a limb that isn't really there, and they think that they'll carry that feeling forever, and they think, too, that they like that idea.</i>
</p>
<p>Vaguely based on the idea in <i>Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America</i> where different people represent the stages of grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forget About the Sunshine When It's Gone

It’s the music that brought them together and it’s the music, he thinks one night on stage, that keeps them together. Which is rubbish, of course; it’s more than the music, but that’s the easiest way to put it, and he imagines the music winding and swirling around them, the notes spinning so fast they’re a blur and they’re tangled and they’re bound forever. And he likes that, he thinks, likes the idea that a part of him will always be theirs, a part of them will always be his.

He stands there, at the edge of his world, and raises his hands, turns to look at Zayn like  _can you believe it mate, we’re here, this is happening, this is real_. He stands there, and it’s become his world now, the voices that pound and crash and vibrate. And that too is a type of music on its own he thinks as he reaches out to the crowd, wishing he could turn this into something tangible, something he could grasp and hold up and wrap himself in.

“Mental, absolutely  _mental,”_  he says afterwards, ears still ringing, arm wrapped round Zayn’s waist because he needs a bit of an anchor after a show sometimes. And his voice is a cheer and a prayer jumbled together, and they grin, tug him closer until they’re a tangled knot in the center of the room, and he can hear their heartbeats dancing over the surface of his skin (and this is even more of a music, the sort that makes his chest swell and crest and break and he feels he might never get used to this, all the music in the world). 

His ears are still ringing when they burst onto the street behind the arena, and he sort of wonders if he could go deaf from this, because surely this can’t be good for his ears, leaving a show and walking into a wall of screams and shrieks, but he just shakes his head a bit, moves closer to Zayn because he doesn’t care. He’s on top of the world, and he doesn’t care, can’t care, not when he’s got his boys and his music. 

They’re still tangled in each other, moving almost as one, these boys who orbit each other, who build their homes in the spaces between fingers and ribs and grins. And the crowd surges towards them, their hands reaching out to take and take, and they’re laughing, almost, because this is what their lives have become, this sphere colored by shouts and stomps. They’re laughing, but he’s moving closer to Zayn because this, this music is jagged and it pokes at his skin until he just wants to be home, wants to be away from it all. It’s louder than usual tonight, and his ears are still ringing, and he steps off the pavement a bit, like he only needs an extra inch and he’ll be fine, like he just needs a bit of a breather in between the crushing noise to steady himself. 

And it becomes a sort of terrifying music, the screech of tires on pavement mixed with the screams, ripped, raw and bleeding, from so many throats; the cracked and fractured sounds of a world shattering in on itself.

They’re left standing around him, still tangled together, but there’s a rush of air next to Zayn, and they’re rung in a circle, gazing down at the broken body in front of them. And the music changes, it explodes into a sort of silence because  _no this couldn’t be real this isn’t happening fuck no fuck fuck fuck_ , and it’s blurred, and it’s faded, and they fall into it, these boys who’ve lost their anchor, grasping and clutching even as that music was withering between their hands.

**Stage One - Denial; Harry**

_No._

It’s the only word he’s managed to think for however long it’s been--a day, a month, a year, he can’t tell anymore; all he knows is that his head feels so, so heavy now--and it  _hurts_. He imagines the word sliding down his throat, sharp-edged and cutting him until he can’t breathe, until he falls over and gasps and everything stops (he imagines too that it might be a sort of relief, that stopping, wonders if he would open his eyes to Niall, Niall grinning and flicking the back of his head and  _alive)_.

He hasn’t left his bed, his room in days now, and the other boys let him stay, let him burrow under the covers and hide away from the world because they understand and they ghost around him, not really there, these boys who once stood atop the world and are now fumbling with the pieces they have left.

“Harry,” Louis says and Harry blinks at his name, once, slowly, before falling back onto the pillow, eyes shutting before Louis even makes it into the room.  _“Harry,”_  he says again, but it’s a whisper this time, pressed to the cotton armor around his shoulders, and he’s shaking, into it or against it, he can’t really tell because all he can hear is the voice that isn’t there.  _“I miss you_ ,” another whisper, another tremor, and then Louis’ hands are sliding under the covers, under Harry’s tshirt, stopping when the reach his heart, like Louis wants to make sure that he’s still there (he’s been having nightmares, and Harry can feel it without being told, the way Louis wakes up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat, afraid that Harry’s heart has stopped; it’s this that he fears the most, Harry slipping away from him, and Harry says nothing, still stuck on  _no)._

“Lou,” Harry starts, and his throat is so tight he’s almost afraid the word has already started cutting away at him. “Lou, it’s my fault, I should have-” and his voice breaks, and he’s curling into Louis now, fists balling up and grasping at Louis’ jumper, but he won’t cry, he won’t cry because crying means it’s over and it’s done and he’s gone. “I should have protected him,” he says, and it’s barely even there, the words falling onto Louis’ jumper, soaking through to his skin, and he’s playing it back again, thinking how he could have fixed it (and it’s weighing him down, and he’s almost worried his shoulders will break under the pressure--he’s always been fragile, hasn’t he? tall, but unspeakably breakable--but he deserves this, he thinks, deserves the pressure and the weight and the guilt).

He falls asleep, in the end, still curled into Louis, and when he wakes, hours later, months later, years later, his head is sore and his lungs feel like they’ve been stomped on. His heart almost stops when he turns his hands over and sees that Louis scrawled an  _L_  on his palm while he was sleeping, and he rubs at it, this fragment of Louis he’s been left with because it burns at him until he thinks he’ll crumble away into ashes (in truth, he had turned his hands over as if in a dream, like he would turn them over and suddenly it would be before, and Niall would bound in, almost tripping over his sneakers, bellowing that ridiculous wake up song they’d coined back at the bungalow another lifetime ago).

_No._

**Stage Two - Anger; Liam**

He’s their rock.

He’s their rock, and it becomes half a prayer, a mantra whispered in the dark (he thinks of the Pokémon who’s only defense is to harden against attacks and he thinks, he thinks he’d like to have that, like to be able to have his moves restricted and his shell so hard nothing can get through).

He’s their rock, but  _fuck_ , he’s cracking.

The first thing he breaks is a vase. He isn’t even sure why he owns a vase, but it’s there, and it’s green and that’s enough, really, because he looks at it and all he can see is Niall’s crumpled ADIDAS tshirt that he’d fished out of a pile of cardigans and thrown in with his wash. Niall had laughed when he gave it back, he remembers, and he’d half stood up from the couch he was sprawled on, given him a lazy, one-armed hug. He can still hear the laugh, a bit, like it’s thrumming underneath his skin, and he can’t take it,  _he can’t take it._   _“Fuck,”_  he spits out, and he blinks and it’s done (he sweeps the pieces up later, bags them up and he almost feels ashamed, that he snapped like that; he’s their rock, he reminds himself, and the words feel like they’ve been tinged with desperation now, and his grip is already slipping). 

The second thing he breaks is his cell phone. He wishes he could turn it off--he knows the boys have had theirs switched off, locked away in cabinets since it happened, but he’s the mature one, the responsible one, and so he sighs, compromises with himself and turns off the ringer, puts it on vibrate--because he’s so  _sick_  of it, sick of getting Tweets from fans who’ve never seen the way Niall would crawl next to him and nestle into his side, sick of the emails he keeps getting from Management about maybe doing an interview or two to calm the waters. His phone vibrates, and he almost bites through his lip as he reaches over and picks it up because he’s worried if he doesn’t, he’ll start screaming and never stop (this has become routine for him now, and it feels a bit like the world’s been set on fire and he’s the only one who can feel the flames). But it’s hard, it’s so fucking  _hard_ , and he gets two emails from Management in a row and his fist is clenching around the phone, knuckles going white, and he can’t, he can’t do this anymore (the phone makes a satisfying crack as it hits the wall, splinters against the ground, and he stands over the pieces, thinks that this feels familiar and this time he draws blood when he bites down on his lip).

Zayn lets himself in later, finds Liam laying in his bed, eyes blank, unseeing. “Li?” he says quietly, sitting on the edge of the mattress like he’s worried he’s intruding.

And he wants to turn away, wants to stay silent, but he can’t--he’s their rock, he reminds himself, and the words taste sour going down--so he moistens his lips, mutters, “hey, Z.” 

“Can’t sleep,” Zayn mumbles, and there’s a dip as he slides under the sheets, fits his body against Liam’s.

“Me either,” Liam says, and it’s on the tip of his tongue, the wreckage of all the things he’s broken and swept up, but then Zayn’s angling his head on Liam’s shoulder, and he sighs, wraps an arm around his shoulders, presses a kiss to his forehead.

“Too many nightmares,” Zayn tells him, and Liam’s hand curls into a fist on his shoulder, and he’s shaking a bit because he feels like he’s burning.

_Fuck_ , he wants to say, all hard edges and nothing like the Liam he’s expected to be.  _You’re not the only one who fucking misses him_ , he wants to say, wants to scream until his throat is raw.  _I don’t have nightmares; I’ve been smashing stuff instead_ , he wants to say, like admitting this will set the world right again. 

But he’s their rock, so he unfurls his fist, squeezes Zayn’s shoulder, and murmurs nonsense words into his hair until he falls asleep, wrapped around Liam like he’s a security blanket.

**Stage Three - Bargaining; Louis**

_Anything_ , he thinks,  _I’ll give you anything._

He’s not sure who he’s pleading to anymore, not sure if anyone’s even listening  _(how can this be good_ , he wonders when it’s dark and his ears are straining at the silence, picking out Harry’s breaths, his heartbeats.  _Where’s the fucking meaning in this_ , he wonders, and he doesn’t have an answer and neither does the God who’s not paying attention, who’s not even there).

He wonders if he has to be more specific, if the more he offers up, the closer he’ll be listened to. 

_I’ll quit singing,_  he thinks, but then that’s not a sacrifice, is it, not when he’s already the weakest link, the hair out of place.  _I’ll-I’ll quit the band_ , he thinks, _get a real job_ , and it hurts, thinking that, but if he closes his eyes, he can picture Niall back and settling down next to him, a football game on in the background and it’s worth it, he thinks, if he gets to have that instead.

His knees are scraped and bruised before long, his lips sore from stumbling over the words, but he persists still, thinking that if he can fix this at least, everything will be okay (he’s used to being the one who fixes things, his shoulders already sloped to fit the weight, so he doesn’t complain, only bows his head and keeps on).

_I’ll leave_ , he thinks, grasping at straws,  _walk away and never look back_ , wondering if Niall would be bright enough to fill that hole, knowing that he would be. 

“Lou?” And he turns, looks for a moment at Harry curled up and broken beneath the covers, and it’s an impulse, this new prayer  _(I’ll leave_ , he thinks again, and he doesn’t tack on the ending because it’s a different sort of leaving he’s offering this time). 

“I’m here, Haz, I’m here,” he whispers, kissing Harry in between each word; soft, fluttering kisses, like he’s afraid anything more substantial will cause him to fly apart at the seams.  _I’m not leaving,_  he wants to add, but he can’t, he  _can’t_ , because this is the most he has to offer up.

_I’ll leave,_  he thinks again and again, until the words are mangled in his mind, turned over and twisted until he can’t remember what they were to begin with.

**Stage Four - Depression; Zayn**

His world is wreathed in smoke now, the edges torn and singed, turning to ash at the slightest touch. His fingers, too, are wounded, burns scattering them like bruises, and he thinks he’s immune to the pain now, wonders if the smoke is acting as an armor (he finds he likes that, this thin protection, and he lights up another cigarette and feels stronger for it). 

He knows, somewhere beneath all the smoke, that the band has officially been put on hiatus, and he stretches out on his bed, eyes following the spinning of his ceiling fan and idly wonders if he turn his phone back on. But he thinks, he thinks of the way his phone would catch him up with all the messages and emails, and he shakes out another cigarette, sucks down until it feels he can breathe again. And he knows that it’s not so much the messages that scare him; it’s the lock screen Niall put up as a joke, some dumb picture he took of them pretending to kiss at Liam’s one night, and it’s the ringtone Niall recorded when he was drunk one night, him singing out a  _na na na na na na Zayn! you’re my hero!_  before collapsing into giggles (he’s not ready, he knows, and so his phone sits, off and untouched, on his bedside table and he’s already reaching for another cigarette).

Louis lets himself in one night, stumbles into his bedroom, curls himself around Zayn. “Where’s Harry?” he asks, and the words are empty, hollow.

They’re tangled together, and he can feel Louis shrug, can feel the puff of breath when he says, a moment later, “sleeping.” A beat, then, “had a nightmare” and Zayn isn’t really sure if he’s talking about himself or Harry.

“You can sleep here, if you want,” Zayn tells him, and Louis doesn’t answer, only closes his eyes and moves closer.

“I miss him,” Louis whispers, his breath tickling Zayn’s collarbone, and it’s strange, almost, seeing Louis curled into a ball and clutching at Zayn like he needs something to hold him steady.

“Me too,” Zayn says, and it hurts, saying that, like he’s admitting that he’s gone, and he moves away from it, searches for a cigarette.

“World’s darker,” Louis mumbles against him, and Zayn doesn’t answer, can’t answer  _(darker_ , he thinks, and he has to tip his head back, has to bite his lip, because he’s worried what will happen if he doesn’t, if he lets that door be opened).

They fall asleep like that, tangled in each other, grasping at waists and shoulders like they’re in need of an anchor, and when they wake up, groggy and still wrapped in each other, the first thing Zayn does is light up a cigarette.

**Stage Five - Acceptance; OT4**

They stand ringed around his grave, hands already reaching out for each other, and it feels like a nightmare. It’s been months, and the band is still on hiatus (Management tried to press them into doing a handful of shows, and they had sat there dumbly until Liam leapt and shouted about how they weren’t ready, they weren’t even One Direction without Niall, and the requests dropped off after that). The world was waiting for them to crack, they knew, and they stand around his grave huddled into each other, moving closer like this, this is new type of armor, the feeling of skin of skin.

“Goodbye,” Harry whispers, his voice breaking, his head fitting against Louis’ shoulder. And they repeat it, slowly, quietly, but it’s just a motion, really, because it won’t ever be goodbye for real. They can still feel him a bit, like he’s a limb that isn’t really there, and they think that they’ll carry that feeling forever, and they think, too, that they like that idea. 

The sun breaks through the clouds then, shining down on these boys who’ve lost their world, and they glance up as one, the sun warming their faces a bit, and they think, they think that they’ll be okay.


End file.
